Ways of Learning

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In the order of retention powers:

Teaching Others / Immediate Use (90% retention) = highest form of learning. Only when you can teach something, you truly know. This is the Feynman technique. This needs deep processing and integration of the subject/material.
Direct Experience / Learning by doing (~75% retention) = hands-on experiential learning leads to strong retention because active engagement reinforces the neural networks.
Apprenticeship (50-75% retention) = this is combination method involving discussion (50%), observation of demonstrations (30%), and guided learning by doing (75%). The master-apprentice model is highly effective.
Group Discussion (50% retention) = discussing material with others encourages critical thinking and clarification of concepts.
Watching demonstrations (includes Youtube)(30% retention) = it is more engaging than passive learning, but still lacks active hands-on experience.
Reading books / texts (10% retention) = relatively passive and has low retention unless combined with active learning (like marginalia). Yeah, very disappointing!
Listening to lectures (5% retention) = most passive method. pretty much everybody knows that from experience

Pure Trial-and-error without instruction, is very variable. But can be effective but very inefficient. Check Kolb’s experiential learning cycle.

K. Letrud and S. Hernes checked upon the numbers in these so called Learning Pyramid systems and debunked the numbers. So treat the above numbers as folklore and not some solid measured / scientific data. Link

Commonplace - There Is No Ox